SOMETIMES, coming last is brilliant. We should try it more often. Violinist Vannessa Mae did. Not content with ten million album sales and having earned £30m by the time she was 30, she decided life wasn’t challenging enough. So she had a go at the Winter Olympics.

At 35, with just six months serious training and a dash around the world to get the necessary qualification, she represented her dad’s home country of Thailand – not exactly famed for its winter sports – and came 67th in the Grand Slalom, by which time most of the spectators had packed up and gone.

But 67th actually wasn’t last as 23 competitors didn’t even finish. So despite the snide remarks of some commentators, I reckon that was an absolute, blistering triumph.

For Vanessa Mae it was a lifetime’s ambition and she was suitably ecstatic “Pure rock ‘n’ roll” she beamed, dismissing concerns about what an accident could have done (a) to her life and (b) to her violin- playing career.

“If you can’t take risks, then what’s the point?” she asked “You have to enjoy life,” and raised her ski poles in the air in sheer delight.

The chances are that very few of today’s children will share her exhilaration.

Another depressing report out this week shows that parents are reluctant to let children play outdoors because of the risk of injury.

Rugby, hockey, horse-riding and swimming are all considered too risky. (Though, surely not swimming seems an awful lot more dangerous than swimming...) Researchers condemned a “cotton wool culture” said that children need to learn how to cope with the knocks of life. It’s not just risks that children need, but fun too. If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly – as long as you enjoy it. If we’re not doing things for fun, then where’s the point?

None of us will probably ever play the violin like Vanessa Mae. Neither will we launch ourselves down mountains in bright Lycra and full public glare and end up in the world’s top 67.

But we can stop being feeble and get out there and do something new just for the hell of it. Otherwise our lives will get so small and safe and narrow and dull that they will hardly be worth living at all.

WHEN we arrived at King’s Cross last week my heart sank. There were police everywhere. Hordes of them in serious expressions and hi vis jackets.

Hard not to feel a shiver.

Then we met Cassie. Nearly tripped over her, in fact.

Cassie was a friendly, flollopy, tailwagging spaniel who looked as though she’d lick you to death. But she’s a working dog – trained to sniff out explosives.

British Transport Police have 35 dogs like Cassie, most of them rescue dogs who have eight weeks training before they get to work. And unlike scarier German shepherds they can go bounding in everywhere without terrifying people. Cassie is such a star professional, she even has her own business card, but was still happy to have her ears tickled.

At a time when the police have been in the dog house over Plebgate and the antics of the Police Federation, Cassie could be just the PR charmer to redress the balance.

UNTIL its massive makeover last year King’s Cross was my idea of hell. Now it’s stylish, spacious and much more comfortable.

What’s more, having met Cassie on the way down, on the way back when I went for coffees the two young waiters were all concern because it was Valentine’s Day and I seemed to be crying. It was just because of the wicked wind just building up nicely in the capital, I told them.

But even so, as a Valentine’s gift, they handed over my large Americanos with flirty smiles and no charge. Then husband bought me a very posh cake from Patisserie Valerie.

Suddenly, King’s Cross is my favourite station in the world.